The Ghost on the Bridge
by Xovinx
Summary: As her life falls apart around her, she found herself returning to the same, dismal bridge. The bridge on which the pale stranger stood, day after day, in silence. Through his eyes, she begins to see things she never expected, the truth of the ghost on the bridge. ( An alternate universe short-story.)


[Author's Note: This was written very late at night, and is not quite up to my usual standards of making-sense, but I liked it too much to leave it alone in its folder. I hope you like it!]

* * *

_I saw him for the first time standing by the railing of the bridge. It was raining, a dismal, dreary rain, without wind or lightning. It was making even me feel gloomy. But he… somehow, just seeing him there, looking ten times, a hundred times, sadder then I felt, made me feel I couldn't complain. _

_He didn't look around as I walked closer, didn't seem to acknowledge my presence. He just stood, hands clasped behind his back, his too-long black hair hanging just to his shoulders to frame his pale face. I considered stopping, see if I could help somehow, but the caution my brother and his friends had once tried to teach me must have sunk in some, because I kept walking._

_And yet, though I didn't look back, I could somehow still see him standing there behind me, pale fingers lying limply against his back, eyes obscured by dark, wet hair…_

_A tear dripping from his chin._

_... _

"Soraaaaa! Are you ready yet?!"

"Almost, almost, just give me a second!"

The brown-haired young man straightened his tie one last time, took a deep breath with his reflection, then turned around and headed for the door. He passed the family shrine, his shadow falling over the pictures as he came between them and the light, and then he was out the door. There was a gentle thunk as he closed it, followed by the sound of his footsteps heading down the hall.

Orihime leaned on the windowsill, looking out through the rain as her older brother and his fiancée left the building. She tried not to feel jealous; after all, just because Tatsuki had been her best friend for years didn't mean no one else could care about her. Or that she couldn't care about someone else.

She looked away as Sora opened the door of his car for Tatsuki, and by the time she looked back, they were gone. Off to another dinner, no doubt. She sighed, then stood up.

"This rain is making me depressed," she said aloud, a habit she had gotten into ever since her brother and best friend seemed to decide she no longer existed. The seemingly obvious fact that that was the reason for her gloom either didn't cross her mind, or she was trying to convince herself otherwise.

"I hope it stops soon…"

_..._

_The rain isn't stopping._

_I don't really remember going back to the bridge. I guess I was preoccupied. That happens sometimes… it used to worry Sira-nii and Tatsuki-chan. Not anymore, though… they don't care anymore._

_He's there again. This time he has his hands in his pockets, but otherwise… I don't think I could have guessed any time had passed for him. Same straight back, same black clothes, same… sad feeling. _

_I don't know how I know he's sad, I just do. I can… sense it, I suppose. Something about him just feels tragic, hopeless._

_And this time, I'm not just walking past._

"_What are you doing out here, all alone in the rain?" I ask, stopping about ten feet away from him._

"_What are _you_?" he responds, and his voice makes me shiver. It sounds as dead and polished as the metal railing. And as unfeeling._

"_I needed to get away from the house," I reply. "But I'm just walking. You were standing here yesterday, too."_

"_Why does it matter to you?" he asked. "What are you, some kind of wandering spirit trying to collect depressing tales?"_

"_No, I'm just a girl. Trying to help."_

_He is silent for a moment, then he turns to look at me. His hair is hanging down both sides of his face, and over his nose, but his eyes are left quite visible. We meet gazes._

_Those brilliant green eyes seem to send an electric current through me. Suddenly, I'm not looking at him anymore, but watching as a scene unfolds before me._

_I see the bridge, and it's still raining. There is a figure leaning against the railing, shoulders hunched. I can hear almost silent sobs, even though the distance should have made it impossible. _

_Somehow, I know what's going to happen already. I want to do something when I hear the car in the distance, stop it somehow, but I can only stand by helplessly as it comes over the curve of the hill, starts across the bridge, slips…_

_Bones crunching. A single, sharp scream. Green eyes widening in shock…_

_Falling, falling, falling…_

___..._

Orihime walked down the street, the hood of her sweatshirt up for once, obscuring her flame-colored hair. The rain continued to fall, but lighter now. Just a drizzle.

It didn't improve her mood much.

"Did you die there?" she whispered, thoughts going back to the quiet, sad sentinel on the bridge. It seemed obvious to her now, after speaking with him. After seeing, somehow, the car crash that had taken place right on that spot, who knows how long ago?

She heard a burst of loud, familiar laughter, and looked up, eyes lightening despite herself. He was easy to spot, across the street, with hair as bright as her own and as unruly as a thorny rose-bush, accompanied by his three friends, all with hair as weird as his own. She began to raise her hand, call out and maybe get him to cheer her up, but hesitated. She didn't know his friends well, they were from his collage and she wasn't sure how much she could trust them, one in particular looked rather shifty with his electric-blue, wild hair and unbuttoned jacket, exposing his chest.

"Kurosaki-kun…" she whispered, on the verge of interrupting them anyway, then tore her gaze away from her childhood friend and towards the ground instead. She hadn't spoken to him since he got back last week… and he hadn't made any attempt to contact her. "Have you left me behind too?" she sighed, barely loud enough for _herself_ to hear.

She moved on, not drawing attention to herself, and Kurosaki kept walking, never seeming to notice her.

_..._

_I don't know why I went back. I mean, why should I? He's just a ghost, after all. I know real people I could be spending time with, real friends, not depressing ghosts on bridges. _

_But I did go back. _

_There were flowers on the bridge this time, a bundle of white flowers tinged with green. They were beautiful, but he was just standing over them, that sad expression on his face again. No, not actually sad. I think hopeless was really the right way to put it. He looked hopeless, lost._

_It made my heart ache for him._

"_Why do you keep coming back to this bridge?" I asked, and he looked at me again with those beautiful, tragic green eyes._

"_The same reason you do, I expect," he replied. That confused me._

"_But… what reason is that?" I ask, and he doesn't reply. I lean forward a bit and look at his face, trying to read him. _

_It's hard. His eyes are closed right now, his lips pressed together gently in a totally emotionless expression, but I can still sense that deep sense of… loss, inside him. _

_Then a tear slips out of his dark eyelashes, tracing a curved line down his cheek._

"_What are you crying for?" I asked. "You come here in the rain, stand on this bridge and cry. Is it because you died here?"_

_His eyes snap open, and he looks at me with an expression I can't even begin to describe._

"_I… died…" he whispered, and we locked eyes again. He broke it, this time, and turned away. "You… you've got it wrong, woman. I might as well have died on this bridge, maybe I should have, and I know I would have preferred to. I keep coming back because I _didn't_. I keep coming back because…"_

_I never heard the end of that sentence. He broke it off and walked away without another word._

___..._

Orihime stood on the bridge, watching the river rushing by below her. The almost unceasing rain for the past few days had swollen it dangerously, but it hadn't spilled its banks yet.

"Why am I here?" she asked herself, leaning against the railing. "Why aren't I going home?"

She thought about it for a minute, and came to a conclusion far faster then she expected. She sighed, closing her eyes.

"That place doesn't feel like home anymore."

_So where is home?_

She heard footsteps, and looked up, eyes widening as she recognized the figures approaching. Sora and Tatsuki were on the road before the bridge, but before they actually stepped onto it Tatsuki glanced up. A lump formed in Orihime's through as her once-best friend's eyes flicked over her as if she didn't exist, and then Tatsuki said something quietly to Sora. Sora replied in an undertone, and the two swerved to one side, heading down the riverbank instead of crossing the bridge.

Something inside Orihime snapped. "Who am I then, nobody?!" she screamed after them, but neither of them bothered to reply. She burst into tears and sat down hard, pressing her back against the railing and burying her head in her hands.

"Nobody cares about me anymore… I might as well be nobody," she sobbed. "I'm only an immature obstacle, in the way of all the people with actual lives…"

A feather hand touched her shoulder, feeling almost insubstantial, like mist. She looked up, startled, into now-familiar green eyes.

_..._

_I hadn't expected him to come back so soon. I hadn't expected _him_ to approach _me_. But most of all, I hadn't expected to see such clear emotion in his eyes. It wasn't that devoid of feeling, hopelessness I had felt before. It was... actual regret. And compassion._

_And then I saw another scene, no, a series of scenes, unfolding before my eyes. This time, though, I was a part of the scenes._

_I was talking heatedly with someone, an older woman. Whatever it was she said, it made me stumble back. I could feel my heart pounding. I rushed into a white room, where I saw a young woman closer to my own age lying, silent and pale, on a bed._

_I was sitting in a car, forehead resting against the steering wheel, the keys hanging from my fingers. My cellphone was ringing. I ignored it. It stopped for a moment, then began ringing again. I took it out of my pocket and threw it out the window._

_I was driving through a forest, the road and trees in front of me blurred by rain. Or, not all rain. Tears, too. _

_I start over a hill. There is a bridge in front of me. I slow down a little, but it wasn't until I was about a third of the way across that I noticed the person standing by the railing. I try to slow down, just a little more, but something under the car slips… we're sliding… I've lost control…_

_I see her spinning, long orange hair swirling around her, just in time for my car to slam into her chest. One scream, short and terrible. And her grey eyes lock onto my green ones, right before glazing over forever._

_We hit the railing hard. I am jerked forward, and my head bashes off… something. Everything explodes into darkness and sparks._

___..._

Orihime blinked, looking at the hand on her shoulder. The hand, pale but alive with warm, flowing blood, that she could barely feel. She looked back up into his vibrant eyes, and she saw herself in the reflection.

She could see the ghost of a girl she had become.

"I'm sorry," came the whisper, barely loud enough for her to hear. "I didn't realize… you don't remember, do you?"

"I… died?" she managed, a tear slipping down her cheek. "All this time… I've been the ghost?"

"I killed you," he said, closing his eyes as he whispered the words. "I killed you right over there. I didn't mean too… there was already too much death and I just…"

"You wanted to come home," she finished for him, seeing in his memories the home he had once had here. In her own, she saw him like a shadow, a lonely child who never fit in.

"There was nothing left for me there. After she died…"

His words broke off, and he turned his head away. Orihime saw the tears anyway, just two, tracing down his cheeks.

Orihime stood, looking back at where Tatsuki and Sora had disappeared.

"They just couldn't see me," she said sadly. "I hated them, thought they had betrayed me, and it was just because… I'm already dead. Kurosaki-kun, too."

"I'm sorry," he said again, still kneeling with his head bowed. "I'm sorry…"

"It was an accident," she replied, clasping her hands behind her and managing a smile. "I don't blame you…"

She hesitated, unable to put together her vague memories of him with a name.

"Ulquiorra," he said quietly. "Ulquiorra Cifer."

"I don't blame you, Cifer-kun." She leaned over and held out a hand to him. "Please, stop crying."

He looked up, then gently, gently laid his hand in hers. She could barely feel him as he stood up, but she clenched her fingers around his anyway.

"Why are you so happy now?" he asked, looking at their hands. "You just found out that you were killed."

Orihime smiled, closing her eyes as she tilted her head back into the rain. "Yes, but now I know that my friends haven't been trying to hurt me. I can go on loving Sora-nii because he didn't abandon me for Tatsuki-chan. I can be happy for Tatsuki-chan without feeling like she stole Sora-nii. I can cheer Kurosaki-kun for making new friends when I know it's hard for him, because he didn't leave me for them." She clenched her fingers a little more, and without releasing it her fingers slipped right through Ulquiorra's, as if they weren't even there. "All I felt before was… hurt, and anger at being left behind. But I don't have to anymore. This time I can leave the hurt and anger behind."

Ulquiorra looked up into her eyes, and Orihime saw her faint reflection again. Faint, almost invisible. She smiled.

"Thank you, Cifer-kun."

Something suddenly shone in his dark eyes, and he reached out again. She raised her hand, but this time she didn't even feel a brush as his hand passed through hers.

"Her name was Rukia," he whispered, a look of urgency in his eyes. "Tell her… I won't give up again."

Orihime's smile broadened. "I'll find her for you, and I'll tell her, Cifer-kun."

"Ulquiorra. Call me Ulquiorra."

"I'm Orihime. Nice to meet you, Ulquiorra."

* * *

[Author's End Note: The Rukiorra element is based on a conversation I had at one point with a friend about character-switching. I doubt I will ever write anything with that particular pairing ever again... but it was kind of fun. :D ]


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